From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stewie Griffin
Family Guy character
Character information
Full name	Stewart Gilligan Griffin
Hometown	Quahog, Rhode Island
Relatives	Father: Peter Griffin Mother: Lois Griffin Siblings: Meg Griffin (sister), Chris Griffin (brother), and Bertram (half-brother)
Age	1[1]
Gender	Male
Hair color	Brown[2]
Religion	Roman Catholic[citation needed]
Heritage	Irish American[citation needed]
Show information
First appearance	"Death Has a Shadow"[citation needed]
Voice actor	Seth MacFarlane

Stewart Gilligan "Stewie" Griffin is a fictional character in the animated television series Family Guy. He is the youngest child of Peter and Lois Griffin. In addition to siblings Chris and Meg, Stewie has (in some episodes) a half-brother Bertram who is unknown to the other Griffins. Stewie is voiced by Seth MacFarlane.

Stewie is considered the show's breakout character.^[3] Wizard Magazine rated him the 95th greatest villain of all time.^[4]

Contents 1 Personality 1.1 Influences 1.2 Communication with adults 1.3 Ambiguous sexuality 2 Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story 3 Bertram 4 Other appearances 5 References 5.1 Footnotes 6 External links

Stewie speaks with an upper-class English accent of a grown man, which is exaggerated for comic effect. He is superintelligent, and has Machiavellian ambitions, including goals of world domination. Seth MacFarlane has compared his personality and mannerisms to those of a Bond villain.

Stewie's sophisticated attitude, nature and mannerisms are juxtaposed with typical childish interests and actions. While highly literate and able to cite pop culture references that date much further back than his age would permit, he is also entranced by Raffi and the Teletubbies. Stewie succumbs to other weaknesses of children his age — he believes Peter has truly disappeared in a game of Peek-a-Boo, is subdued with laughter when Lois blows on his stomach,^[5] and has no idea how to use the toilet. MacFarlane has stated that Stewie is meant to represent the general helplessness of an infant through the eyes of an adult.

Per cartoon physics, his ability to move objects of greater weight than himself is not surprising to other characters, nor is his ability to retrieve firearms from hammerspace.

Stewie's mastery of physics and mechanical engineering are at a science-fictional level. He has constructed advanced fighter-jets, a mind control device, a weather control device, robots, and a time machine.^[6] Stewie employs these to cope with the stresses of infant life (such as teething pain, and eating hated broccoli) and to kill Lois, with mixed success at best.

In later episodes Stewie's matricidal and supervillainous tendencies are downplayed in favor of criminal violence, including such acts as carjacking, ^[7] loansharking, ^[8] and killing off minor characters who've run their course on the show. ^[9] This shift in Stewie's motives parallels the shift of comic book and film villains over the last half-century from Machiavellian plots for world domination to more muted pursuits such as racketeering, money laundering, and other forms of organized crime.

Though it is now only seldomly stated, it is clear that Stewie still despises his mother and wants to take over the world. In the action-packed but misleadingly named sixth season episodes "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie," Stewie returns to his matricidal efforts in what turns out to be a simulation.

Even though Stewie has disregard for his mother, in most episodes he is held or sits directly next to Lois without complaint. Keeping in touch with his childhood instincts, he still sees Lois as a source of comfort and protection even though he thinks she impedes his plans for world domination. So, the "hating" of Lois may be a double-edged sword-he loves her protection, but on occasion still wants to kill her.

Some elements of Stewie's personality come from English actor Sir Rex Harrison. MacFarlane has stated that My Fair Lady (starring Harrison) heavily influenced his portrayal of Stewie, and on The Late Show with David Letterman, described Stewie as "Rex Harrison in an infant's body". Family Guy has included several tributes to My Fair Lady, most notably in "One If By Clam, Two If By Sea" and "Running Mates".

Seth MacFarlane has established a few general rules as to how Stewie communicates with others.

Brian always understands

Brian is, as of now, the only main character whose ability to understand Stewie is unambiguous; the two always converse normally. In "Running Mates", Brian briefly appears to hear Stewie's thoughts; this phenomenon has not been explored in subsequent episodes.^[10]

Adults understand, but disregard Stewie

Throughout the first two seasons of the series, it was suggested that none of the other prominent characters (with some minor exceptions) could understand what Stewie says, apparently hearing what he says through their ears as infantile blathering. In the DVD audio commentary for "E. Peterbus Unum", (at the end of which, the question of weather adults could understand Stewie is raised), however, MacFarlane explains adults can understand him, but don't take him seriously, "sort of like... if a four-year-old who [could] talk told you to 'fuck off'." In this manner, characters acknowledge Stewie, but pay no mind to his often-insulting addresses, such as calling Peter "the fat man". His insults are usually heard, such as when Stewie tells Lois "Why don't you burn in hell?!" and Lois replies "Well, no dessert for you, young man."^[11]

“	There's always been a lot of tension between Lois and me, and it's not so much that I want to kill her, it's just I want her...(uneasy pause) to die. I sometimes wonder if all women are this difficult, and then I think to myself: My God, wouldn't it be marvelous if I turned out to be a homosexual?	”
—Stewie, video camera confessional from "Fifteen Minutes of Shame"

When the writers began to flesh out Stewie beyond being a generic evil genius in season two, MacFarlane and the writers began to explore the infant's sexuality with a series of one-off gags, which hinted that Stewie could be gay. On the commentary of Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story, the writers describe how they were going to make Stewie discover he was gay, but decided to go "another way."

Stewie is shown reacting with spontaneous enthusiasm to brief homosexual encounters in several episodes, and in "Chick Cancer" he wishes men could "get together with their buddies, and just have it be the same thing as being with a woman". Stewie has also cross-dressed in several episodes, even going so far as to enter a girls' beauty contest in Boys Do Cry. In several situations Stewie has implied he has a crush on Brian,^[12] and a few episodes depict Stewie imagining vaguely homoerotic adventures with his teddy bear, Rupert.^[13]

MacFarlane planned for the series' third season to end with Stewie coming out of the closet after a near-death experience. However, the show's abrupt cancellation caused MacFarlane to abort these plans, and the episode "Queer is Stewie?" was never produced. Since that point, MacFarlane has opted to have Stewie portrayed as sexually ambiguous, as, in his eyes, the flexibility of Stewie's sexuality allows for much more freedom in terms of writing for the character.

Stewie has had liaisons and attractions to girls, notably in "Dammit Janet!", where Stewie falls in love with a girl named Janet, and "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", where Stewie falls for his babysitter. In "Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?", Stewie becomes sexually aroused watching female cheerleaders. In "Chick Cancer", Stewie falls in love and eventually "marries" a child actress named Olivia Fuller. Several episodes depicting Stewie's possible adult self portray him in a heterosexual relationship, or pursuing one.^[14] In "Peter's Two Dads", Stewie discovers that he "gets a jolly out of being hit" after Lois spanks him as a form of punishment, and does everything in his power to get into trouble so she can hurt him again. As with several other of Stewie's eccentric turn-ons, this may be a single episode situation.

Main article: Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story

On September 27, 2005, 20th Century Fox released a direct-to-video movie featuring Stewie as the main character, titled Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story. The movie follows Stewie's cross-country adventures as he searches for a man he believes to be his real father after seeing him on a television news segment.

The movie was re-edited into three half-hour episodes and shown as the season finale on May 21, 2006.^[15]

Main article: Bertram (Family Guy)

Bertram is Stewie's mostly-antagonistic half-brother. While exploring his father's internal organs using his miniaturized submarine (a la the film Fantastic Voyage), Stewie first meets Bertram as the homuncular inhabitant of a spermatozoon. Their personalities are similar, and in battle they are evenly matched.^[5] Bertram returns post-natally, having been sired by Peter via a sperm bank donation.^[16]

While technically a half-brother also to Chris and Meg, Bertram appears only to Stewie in these episodes — it is not made clear whether Bertram occupies the same reality as the rest of Griffin family in the logic of the show.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Stewie appeared in a short clip on the 20th annual MTV Video Music Awards insulting rapper 50 Cent, which has become a viral video circulating on numerous online services. Stewie, with blocks spelling out "MTV", Rupert and a baby toy in the background, reads some words from the song "Wanksta" in a comical voice, then commenting: "Well, good luck finding the subject and predicate of that run-on sentence! And what the bloody hell does it mean, "we don't go nowhere without toast"? Now, you listen to me, Mr. Cent. If you want to make it in this business, lay off the doobie!". He then pulls out a hitherto concealed sign reading "Stewie for Governor".
• Stewie's face, on a stick, can be seen in the background of the ESPN talk show Pardon the Interruption.
• On a bonus DVD segment for the Family Guy Soundtrack, Stewie performs a rap/R&B song called "Sexy Party."
• During the 2006 Canadian Election Royal Canadian Air Farce ran their own election with Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Jack Layton (all leaders of the major parties that election), Jim Harris (whose Green Party, while still minor, was gaining public attention) and "Stewie from Family Guy." Stewie ended up winning with 39 percent of the votes.
• Stewie has appeared on the MSNBC news program Countdown with Keith Olbermann, often introducing (or regressing) news stories regarding Bill O'Reilly. On the May 24, 2006 show, he introduced O'Reilly as Worst Person in the World (a regular Olbermann segment) on the program. Stewie said, "Oh, wait, Bill, hold still. Allow me to soil myself on you. Victory is mine!" This has been shortened to just "Today's Worst Person in the World." Stewie announced June 1 "Countdown presents: 'Factor Fiction', wherein we expose that bastard Bill O'Reilly lying again." He then repeated what he had said above. This has become the norm on O'Reilly segments most of the time. On June 5, 2006, he introduced "Breaking News" about Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and American Idol by saying "Oh here we go. Probably some story about Britney Spears or, knowing Keith, some baseball card." He also did an animation saying "Breaking News. Oh, this should be rich, must be something of a monumental earth shattering importance or they wouldn't have that Earth there shattering. See it shattering? It's Earth Shattering Breaking News. Oh, do tell me! Tell me, tell me!"
• Stewie (along with Brian, the latter with no speaking roles) has also appeared on the unaired short of My Name Is Earl called Bad Karma, in which he influences Earl to get even with everyone who's wronged him. Earl watches him on TV instead of Carson Daly. This short appears on the Season 1 DVD.
• Stewie was an announcer of the 2006 Spike Video Game Awards.
• Stewie and Brian appeared at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards performing a musical number poking fun at networks and current shows on the air, while also poking fun at the new shows coming this fall, such as the Geico Cavemen. The song was based on the FCC song from the episode "PTV".

• Stewie Live

v • d • e Family Guy
Related	Criticism · Episode list · History · Places · Quahog · Voice actors
Griffin family	Peter · Lois · Meg · Chris · Stewie · Brian
Related characters	Francis Griffin · Thelma Griffin · Bertram · Mickey McFinnigan · Pewterschmidt Family
Recurring characters	Cleveland Brown · Joe Swanson · Glenn Quagmire · Mort Goldman · Tom Tucker · Mayor Adam West · Neil Goldman · Bonnie Swanson · Kevin Swanson · Herbert · Jonathan Weed
Cast	Seth MacFarlane · Alex Borstein · Mila Kunis · Seth Green · Mike Henry · Patrick Warburton · Adam West · Jennifer Tilly · John G. Brennan · Nicole Sullivan · Carlos Alazraqui · Adam Carolla  · Lori Alan
DVDs and CDs	DVDs · Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story · Family Guy: The Freakin' Sweet Collection · Family Guy: Live in Vegas · Video Game